Fractured Everest Box Set

by D. H. Dunn

  Pulling stale air into her empty lungs, Upala placed one hand on the ground and then the other. Flexing muscles that ached for rest, she pushed her head up to see where she had arrived.

  In the low light, she could make out the others. She counted five slumped bodies on the dirt with her, some moaning.

  It was dark, but not so dark she could not recognize where she was. The damp air, the dripping water and the cold. . . They were back in the cave of the Yeti.

  As dozens of the creatures walked out of the shadows, closing in with anger on their faces, Upala found she did not lack the energy to be afraid.

  Chapter 8

  Tanira gripped the lavender fur of the Dragon, her legs clamped around the creature’s long, thin neck. Even with the layers of cloaks and furs Reylor had brought, the wind cut through them, the cold cutting like knives against her skin. Still, she smiled even as she worried the tears in her eyes might freeze. With Reylor behind her and the Thread under, she smiled a smile only she could see. With clouds above and below her, the view was simply too beautiful.

  To be in the sky, to be like the bird she once called friend, it was a secret wish fulfilled. A desire not borne of the Line, or her father, but a dream that was all her own. A Tanira dream.

  The mountains of her world sped by below as the beast’s great wings beat through the air. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that Reylor still had his head down and eyes shut. Tanira wondered if he had even been told of this part of his mission. They had left Ish Selot only moments before, the Thread confirming it could bring them to the Vault of the Voice before nightfall.

  Just one day earlier she had been on another world, in another place. Her thoughts drifted back to the temple, to the great machine she had seen, but she knew she was not opening the door to that memory. There was another’s touch in her thoughts, guiding her gently to secrets it wanted to unlock.

  She slammed the door shut in her mind, laughing softly.

  “You persist in looking for things inside my head, creature. I have been trained to keep locks in my mind since before I could walk.”

  “The attempt must be made,” the Thread said. “I shall continue to make them.”

  She had studied the Dragons for years, it had been a major focus of her teens. Her father had grilled her endlessly on each Dragon’s disciplines, their weaknesses and favored tactics. Everything the Line had been able to glean from the ancient Manad Vhan texts they uncovered for Kater and Upala.

  The Thread’s mental skills were its primary ability, its ability to link the other Dragons together allowed them to work with military precision.

  “You have been trained,” the Thread continued, his tone pleasing. “Yet your companion has not. Such secrets he has, should I reveal them to you? Perhaps we could trade?”

  Tanira turned to look at Reylor, knowing the answers to how she was to use the Helm were locked away in his head. She could not tell if Reylor even heard the Thread, his head still down and his hands clutching the Dragon’s mane so tightly they shook.

  “If I tell you what I know,” Tanira said, “I have no leverage against you, Thread. Reylor will give me his secrets when I need them, that is the will of the Line.”

  “You need no leverage to convince me to war against the Manad Vhan, little Rakhum. I would be flying to the City of Sands now, were it not for your request to reach Ish Kalum.”

  “You are mighty, but I doubt you would face a nation of Manad Vhan on your own.” They passed through a cloud, the white vapors rushing past and blotting out the world. For a moment, a heartbeat, there was no Line. There were no Vaults or Manad Vhan, no secret plans or ancient angers. Just the sky and the wind and Tanira.

  Too soon, they emerged again from the clouds, the snowcapped peaks and meandering glaciers below returning.

  “Perhaps,” the Thread said after a time. “Yet the choice confuses. Why the Voice? There are more powerful Dragons closer, even if you did not wish to risk Terminus on Ish Rav Partha, there is the Weight on Ish Hochyu.”

  Another attempt at opening a door. The Thread was clever. The Weight’s time would come, but she did not need to let the Dragon know of that.

  “Is there an issue with the Voice, for you?”

  “Violent and irrational,” the Thread said, wings flapping with additional force as the words formed. Tanira grabbed onto its fur even tighter. “Difficult to control. Disrespectful of Terminus and those who are her elders. I would release all twelve of my brothers and sisters before her. She is where she should be.”

  “Our target is no more my choice than it would be yours, Dragon. It is the choice of the Line, and part of our bargain.”

  Tanira studied the horizon, scanning for the distinctive peak of Ish Kalum, a lone pyramid of stone thrusting into the sky. She had never seen the mountain with her eyes, but she had been drawing it from memory since she was a little girl. Based on the Thread’s estimate of nightfall, it would be some time before the mountain was even visible, but she was anxious.

  As enjoyable as the flight was, the needs of the Line were a whip at her back. Once those needs were met, the whip would be gone and that would be a blessing greater than a thousand flights in the clouds.

  “I am afraid of the height we are at,” Reylor said, his voice quivering. “I-I cannot open my eyes. I knew this would be part of my task, yet there was no way to prepare for it. No way to know.”

  “There is no shame in that, Reylor,” Tanira said. “The Line has asked me to do much for which I was . . . unprepared.”

  She expected the Thread to comment, but the Dragon stayed silent. Perhaps it did not wish to join a conversation between two Rakhum.

  “Yet the Line chose you,” Reylor said. “I begged Garantika himself to allow me into the Order. Showed him that I carved the symbol into my forehead myself. I expected him to kill me, just for revealing I knew it existed.”

  Her father? It was odd to hear him spoken of this way. When she attained the title of End her father had revealed to her that he himself led the order, but it was still hard to picture him in command of men and women, other agents.

  Though she was told of the existence of other members of the Line, she had only ever seen him.

  “What drove you to this?” The idea of being in the Line by choice was difficult to process. If one could choose to be in the Line, then it seemed one could choose to leave it. Yet their cause, her cause, was unmistakably just. The evils of the Manad Vhan were without excuse or tolerance.

  “My brothers worked in one of the Nalam Wast digsites, just as I had been assigned to when I came of age.”

  “They were killed in a cave in?” It was a common story. Her father had told her of the many Rakhum killed in cave-ins that happened at the old Manad Vhan temples where Kater and Upala had their Rakhum slaves unearthing their treasures.

  “No, though there was indeed a cave in,” Reylor said. “One of the higher digs at Lobuche, not far from the summit. My brothers were both off shift at the time. I remember how happy mama had been, knowing her boys had been spared. When they reported for assignment that morning, Lord Kater himself was there. He wanted the remaining shifts to dig out the treasure room, to save the artifacts.”

  “But not the other workers? The ones who were trapped in there?”

  “If they were on the route to the treasure chamber, yes. Otherwise they were to be left, ‘let the bones of the mountain take them,’ in Lord Kater’s words. My older brother, Terray, he refused. He marched past the dig commander and went right to Lord Kater, looked him in the eye. In the eye! Told him he would do no such thing.”

  “Kater killed him.” It was not a question. Her father had told her much of the Manad Vhan’s casual brutality.

  “Burned him right there,” Reylor said, his face flush with anger. “Right in front of everyone. Said that was to be an example for any Rakhum that might challenge Lord Kater’s priorities. Sadly, one other person did.”

  Tanira bit her lip, picturing a smaller Reylo
r in the doorway of his home, being told his brothers died for a scroll. Even worse, they died because they valued the lives of other Rakhum over a scroll.

  Killed by their god, for paper.

  “The next day, with two brothers dead, I started looking for another way. This has been going on for thousands of years, there must have been someone else willing to stand up to these ‘gods.’ It took me a long time, but I found out the truth and . . . here I am.”

  “With fortune, your kin shall be avenged yet,” the Thread said with a solemn tone, surprising Tanira with his speech. It banked to the right, gently adjusting its flight and dipping lower. The peaks below them streamed by, a blur against the speed of the Dragon.

  “They shall!” Reylor shouted, letting go of the beast’s mane for a moment to raise his fist in the air. “The Line and the Thread have come together. We have nothing to fear.”

  “No, little Rakhum,” the Thread said, flapping its great wings again. “We approach the Voice. We may yet risk Terminus himself. There is uncertainty ahead and perhaps foes behind. We have everything to fear.”

  The Thread was right, there were many unanswered questions ahead of them. She wondered what Reylor’s secret was, and why had it been kept from her. She wondered how difficult the Voice would be to control.

  Most of all, she wondered if there were indeed foes behind them. Upala and the new male Manad Vhan had been left on Varesta with Nima, but there was another portal there. It was guarded and inactive, but it would be foolish to assume they could not get past it. She had underestimated Nima before.

  Her mind brought her back to the lush forests of Sirapothi, where she had run laughing from a rampaging Grun, Nima and Val at her side.

  Her friends, who never suspected Tanira would be days away from killing one of them and abandoning the other.

  Cost upon cost, piling upon her heart. Betrayed eyes and cut throats, all in the name of the Line. Each one a stone on the road behind her, and a hand at her back. If she were to cause so much pain, it had to be worth it in the end.

  Tanira set her jaw, watching as the sun sank lower in the sky. Ish Kalum and the Vault of the Voice could not come soon enough.

  Chapter 9

  Upala looked around in the dim light of the cave, her vision blurred by fatigue. She blinked against the distortion, the shapes around her slowly revealing themselves to be her companions.

  That one flame of worry extinguished itself as she made out the forms of Drew, Nima, Merin and Kater, each slumped on the ground around her, but breathing.

  Alive, at the least. They had done it. Some were stirring but no one seemed fully conscious yet except her.

  The shambling shapes of the Yeti moved forward, blocking any exit from the small cavern.

  She could see the many crystals lining the creature’s backs, a spectrum of colors glowing and pulsing as they advanced. Her heart pounded in her chest, her fear for Drew, for the others intermixing with the crushing fatigue from the portal translation. Soundlessly the massive beasts moved forward, a wall of white fur that undoubtedly wanted revenge for Sinar’s actions as well as her own.

  She tried to call fire to her hands, but little came except a warming of her palms. She was back in Aroha Darad, and back at a lower altitude. She could shield here, but little more. Reaching down to try and tap what reserves she might have, she was only able to call forth a small shimmering field of red energy, hardly enough to cover even herself.

  The shield collapsed around her as her strength gave out. Upala fell onto her side, the cold stone damp and wet against her cheek.

  “Drew. . .” It was a whisper. The cavern grew darker as the Yeti moved forward, blocking out the light behind them and leaving Upala in near darkness. All she could see were the colors of their crystals, all she could feel were the vibrations of their heavy feet on the stone.

  There was movement out of the corner of her eye. A figure stood in front of the Yeti, at first obscured by the dim light.

  The Yeti froze, halting their advance just a step away from the small shape in their midst. Each one then dropped to one knee, head bowed. Upala watched as the crystals on their backs changed color, all phasing to a blinding white that lit the room as the Yeti stood and encircled the figure.

  A hand landed on her shoulder from behind and Upala yelped out in surprise. She knew the touch without looking. Drew.

  “What is going on?” he asked.

  She did not have a chance to consider how to explain as the circle of Yeti opened, the creatures lining up and facing them. In their midst was a kneeling girl, were she Rakhum Upala would have judged her to be in her mid-teens. She was no Rakhum though, her blue skin and lightly scaled face looked back at them, huge, dark eyes framing a brilliant, white crystal in her forehead.

  “Lhamu!” Nima shouted, limping as she ran forward. The girl’s head turned toward Nima, wide dark eyes reflecting the many colors of the crystals around her.

  As the Yeti moved to encircle Lhamu, Merin launched herself forward, reaching Nima and pulling her back just before the charging Sherpa could collide with the wall of white fur.

  “How?” Drew said, pushing himself up.

  The same question ran through Upala’s mind. Kater had aged during his time in the Under, but that had been the result of his healing being removed by that region’s strange dampening of Manad Vhan magic.

  She supposed it could be an effect of Lhamu’s race. Her studies had made no mention of these Caenolans on Sirapothi, but Nima had said there was an entire society of them there. Yet another mystery.

  “Let me go!”

  Nima struggled against Merin, Drew limping over to help. As she tried to contain the Sherpa woman, the burns across Merin’s left side were painful to look at, her clothes seared away and leaving the wounds exposed.

  Upala forced herself into a kneeling position, giving one quick glance around the room. Kater was slumped next to the portal exit, looking as inert as the magical gateway. His eyes blinked, but he was either too exhausted or disinterested to react to the scene in front of him.

  She rose to her feet, her stance wobbling as if the stone were made of water. Drew had his arm around Nima, Merin having sat again. Nima’s face was bright red, and she still demanded Drew release her, though she did not struggle with him.

  One Yeti stepped away from the circle, turning to walk toward them. Her heart fell at the sight, panic spreading through her in waves from the pit in her stomach. These were the same creatures Sinar had immolated before her eyes, and they likely blamed her for the horrible crime.

  Upala barely had enough energy to keep herself on her feet, the rest of them seemed in worse condition. They could not stand against even one of the creatures, not and keep everyone safe from harm.

  Raising its massive paws, claws as long as Upala’s hand, the Yeti did the last thing Upala had expected.

  “I am the Speaker,” it said. “I have been selected to address you.”

  The Yeti’s voice was muffled and low, as if the sounds were coming from underneath several layers of snow. Looking into its face, she could see the bluish lips underneath the mass of white fur struggle to form the words. He looked as large and imposing as any of his race, with no distinguishable marks or indications of individuality. The crystals lining his back and shoulders continued to pulse a pure white in time with the other Yeti.

  “The speaker. . .” Upala said, struggling to understand what was happening. They wanted to talk?

  “Let Lhamu go!” Nima yelled, the Speaker turning its head toward the small woman, still being held back by Drew.

  “We protect the Link,” he said to Nima. There was little tone to the words, his voice devoid of violence or peace. “This Link is the Foretold, and we protect her. That is our rocha.” The Speaker said “rocha” as if the meaning should be obvious, yet Upala had never heard of it.

  “No! She needs me!” The Yeti took two steps toward Nima as she finally pulled free of Drew. She ran up to the Speaker, repe
ating herself, “She needs me.”

  “You are the Arrived, the Link does draw strength from you. She is struggling with the translation, the loss of connection. You may be with her, once we have remedied this condition.”

  The large group of Yeti moved out of the chamber, taking Lhamu with them. As Nima attempted to run past the Speaker, the Yeti reached out with one enormous hand and plucked her off the ground.

  Drew ran forward with his fists raised, stopping when the Yeti gently placed Nima back down in front of him.

  “No combat is needed,” the Speaker said, his deep voice calm. “Though your patience is required, Arrived. Access to the Foretold will be permitted.”

  “But what do you want with her?” Upala stepped in between the Speaker and Nima, hoping she looked more imposing than she felt. Drew continued to attempt to calm Nima down, but Upala was unsure of how successful he would be. Right now, the Yeti were not attacking and the only hope they had of keeping everyone alive was to keep it that way.

  The Yeti looked down at her, looking at her with the same dark eyes she had removed from Yeti skulls many times. She felt exposed, her past always in front of her.

  “Sentenced, you ask questions yet there is much you must answer for.”

  Sentenced? She supposed that was their title for her, one she could not argue with. “You translated along with the Arrived and the Foretold. Your party also includes the Trusted. This grants you a truce with the Yeti, so long as you do not interfere with our rocha.”

  “Rocha? I do not-”

  “It means their calling,” Kater said, his voice sounding weak and tired. He still sat slumped against the wall of the cavern. “Near as I have determined, it is like a divine quest for them, one they decide together.”

  “You are correct, Trusted. To preserve the Foretold is our rocha.”

  Merin laughed, a scornful sound. “If you call Kater ‘Trusted’ I am not sure we should trust you.”